Opening night college football coverage: UNC-South Carolina, Ole Miss-Vandy and more

I’m just concerned about that Tide offense, Pawl, seeing as it’s having to be bailed out by its special teams like this. Y’all think AJ’s being hampered by that walking boot and that ingrown toenail this badly? This ain’t no way to run the clock down, to be certain. Lot to get corrected for next week.

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Jadeveon Clooney.

In the record book, the Trojans did their job this week. They beat Hawaii, and did so with room to spare, winning 30-13.

But the final score tells little about what happened on the islands on the first night of the college football season, a game in which Lane Kiffin’s squad looked positively inept on offense, incapable of exploiting a Warriors defense that finished in the bottom 25 in the country in virtually every category.

1. After some nasty conjecture from both the coach and his constituency these last two weeks, James Franklin got his home sellout of 40,000. And Vanderbilt took the loss for a second consecutive Thursday night ESPN opener. In the process, the narrative around the university, city, and region clouded a bit more, shifting between Franklin’s success, the looming sexual assault trial of four former players and the apparently irreversible fan ennui.

“The losses hurt bad. I hate the losses. More than you can possibly imagine,” Franklin said after the game.

The weather on Thursday night was oppressive, even by South Carolina standards. On-field temperatures were in the mid-90s through most of the first half, with 70 percent humidity. Only the thunderstorm that rolled through Columbia midway through the fourth quarter could break the heat’s stranglehold on the game. Clowney fought cramps throughout the game:

He was also frequently seen rehydrating on the sideline:

Less than 24 hours into the college football season, two teams from the top-flight FBS, where schools are allowed 85 scholarships, pulled the impressive feat of losing to teams from the second-tier FCS, where teams are allowed just 63.

One of these was South Alabama, which is technically in its first year as a full FBS team. The newly promoted Jaguars fought hard, but fell to Southern Utah -- the southern parts of all states will rise again -- on a last-second field goal.

The ESPN cameras were zoomed in on his every move, Twitter was moving a mile a minute trying to keep up with each move he made in the pass-rush and the announcers were seemingly spending as much time discussing Clowney as they were the actual game taking place around the nation’s best player. Most importantly, though, the entire North Carolina offense knew where Clowney was before each and every snap -- even when he was sitting out for extended stretches of the game.

That absence may have been due to a conditioning issue or it may have had something to do with a cut block that left him limping a bit. Clowney insisted it was due to a stomach virus,however, according to Josh Kendall of the State newspaper in South Carolina.

The college football season kicked off in a big way Thursday night. That big way included lightning, last-second finishes and upsets to start the 2013 season.

Here’s a small example of Sir Chuckie’s brilliance - every member of the Utah defense will bite on this pump fake in nightmares for years to come.

The senior All-SEC receiver hopped to his feet. Then he doubled over. He gestured to the sideline and to his stomach, and then he crumpled to his knees before vomiting. He then lined up as Vandy ran a running play up the middle.

You don’t have to look at the vomit.

USC sacked Hawaii quarterback Taylor Graham six times and intercepted him four times, including one returned for touchdown by junior safety Josh Shaw late in the second quarter. The touchdown for Shaw was part of a 17-0 run by the Trojans in the final 4:18 of the first half that overshadowed what could have been an embarrassing first half for USC.

Up next for the Trojans is a home date with Washington State on Saturday, Sept. 7, while the Warriors face another Pac-12 opponent with a trip to Corvallis against Oregon State.

For the second year in a row, Ole Miss-Vanderbilt produced a wild ending. This time around, it was the Rebels that came away with the comeback victory, taking a 39-35 conference win home from Nashville, keyed by quarterback Bo Wallace’s 283 yards passing and 48 on the ground, an exciting crew of offensive weapons, and a defender we’ll all start to fear a little bit pretty soon.

The story on Ole Miss after the game remains the same. Nkemdiche was everywhere, badgering Austyn Carta-Samuels throughout the night and even turning up as the running back on a fake punt, which worked. Coach Hugh Freeze praised his 285-pound freshman’s mobility at halftime.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Just brutal. Props to Graham, though -- he used his 6’5, 235-pound frame to full advantage. Seymour, a sophomore, weights just 175 pounds at 6’0.

Even in a loss, Keeton was the highlight of the night. The junior quarterback finished 29-of-37 for 299 yards and two touchdowns, with 84 rushing yards on 15 attempts to boot. Yet, his counterpart, Utah quarterback Travis Wilson, was an equally efficient 17-of-28 for 302 yards and two touchdowns.

The difference, then, might’ve been the fumble Keeton lost with 4:32 remaining in the second quarter. At that point, Utah State had reached Utah’s 31-yard line with a fresh set of downs.

The hit clearly came after the ball was thrown, and while it’s possible Holts slipped a little, he appeared to push his body toward Clowney as he fell toward the ground. Clowney remained in the game, despite the scare.

South Carolina faced little trouble from UNC, posting 17 unanswered points in the first quarter and bringing a 27-10 lead late into the fourth quater.

North Carolina staged a brief comeback, with a Brynn Renner touchdown pass and Thomas Moore 20-yard field goal capping two long Tar Heel drives and narrowing the South Carolina lead to 20-10 halfway through the third quarter. Just three plays later, though, Gamecocks running back Mike Davis broke a run down the right sideline for a 75-yard touchdown to put the game out of reach.

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Connecticut opened the scoring with a 31-yard Shakim Phillips touchdown catch, capping a 92-yard first quarter drive and giving the Huskies a 7-0 lead. It would be the last lead they would hold. Towson tied the game two minutes later on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Peter Athens to Sterling Phifer.

A Chandler Whitmer second quarter interception gave Towson the ball at the UConn 29, and Phifer quickly cashed in a second touchdown to extend Towson’s lead to 13-7. A long UConn drive stalled at the Towson 5 yard line, leading to a field goal, and the Tigers took a 13-10 lead to the locker room.

Caleb Azubike is a talented defensive end for Vanderbilt, recording four sacks last year as a true freshman. Where does he get his skills? Probably from his BIONIC HORRIFYING ANCHOR EYES:

Important edit:

Indiana State-Indiana has been filled with plenty of fireworks, as the the Hoosiers held a 59-28 lead as of the 6:00 mark in the third quarter. The Hoosiers have more than doubled the Sycamores’ offensive output, nearing the 500 total-yard mark before the fourth quarter.

• The prettiest, smartest college football preview collection anywhere, by Bill Connelly

With the Aggies trailing, 14-10 with 3:30 to go in the first half, Keeton led Utah State from its own 15-yard line to Utah’s 45. But after a few negative plays, he found his offense with a 3rd-and-13 from Utah’s 43.

No worries, apparently.

I’m only kind of sure how this is legal, but on their first drive against Ole Miss, Vanderbilt’s ENTIRE OFFENSIVE LINE was involved in some motion before the snap.

Vandy’s starting center, Joe Townsend, starts at center with two linemen to his right and three to his left. And all of a sudden errbody kinda scurries, and left tackle Wesley Johnson is the center. It’s not a false start, and one would presume the wide receiver on the left side of the field (out of the picture) is on the line of scrimmage to make No. 82 ineligible.

Update: The game is scheduled to resume at 10:30 ET on ESPN News.

Update (9:10 p.m. ET): Make that at least another 30 minutes, due to multiple reports of another lightning strike nearby.

Midway through the first quarter, Scott got rolled up from behind while blocking. Unable to put weight on the injured ankle, the junior needed help walking off the field and was later seen on a cart near the tunnel to Utah’s locker room.

The Utes’ offense was nevertheless able to move the ball after Scott’s injury, closing the first quarter with a 14-3 lead over the Aggies thanks to two touchdown passes from quarterback Travis Wilson, the first to Anderson.

While wandering before the Hawaii-USC game, reporter Rich Hammond discovered this deep in the recesses of Aloha Stadium:

The likely explanation is that Michael Jackson became the first person to sell out Hawaii’s home field, doing so during his 1997 tour. That apparently deserves tribute in the form of a giant, weirdly squarish portrait.

Considering the current focus on avoiding head injury, how was this not a penalty? The talk of the offseason, as far as on-field rules go, was the new emphasis on helmet-targeting hits. The rule was modified to include ejections for players found guilty of needlessly striking another player in the head. That sure looks like what’s happening here.

We assumed the rule’s first controversy would be an ejected player, not a hit that looks like it should’ve been flagged. (That flag in the GIF, by the way, was for something else.)